Baby Claire

Jo's only got 4 weeks until the first Ellis love child arrives. She sent us all an update this afternoon...

Hello all! It's been a while since we sent out an update, so I thought I would just let you know how things are going. We had our wonderful baby shower about a month ago. It was so amazing! We really don't need much of anything now, thank you all for your thoughtful gifts! Claire has been stretching more than flip-flopping now, which is surely a result of the lack of room for her to do so :o) I'm feeling more cramped...kind of like I've got a balloon inside my belly that just keeps getting blown up more and more every hour! :o) That's alright though because we only have 4 weeks to go! The count down begins today actually!!! I've not really gotten swollen or too uncomfortable yet. Let's just keep hoping that stays away. I'm also still sleeping in the bed, which, from what I hear, is quite a miracle! We are going to the doctor every week to check progress as we prepare for labor. Only a few more appointments left now!

They're planning for a completely natural delivery and intend to do most of the laboring at home. With it being her first experience of labor, I'm not certain of any outcome, but I think that's half the fun in having babies. I love surprises! Jo's a planner, totally a planner- so for her sake, I hope it's exactly how they have invisioned. She's been the best pregnant person! She never really complains; always positive after a comment about not sleeping. It's encouraging to me as a mom and it reminds me of just how strong my big sister is... I like her.

Training for the 5K...and flying with eagles

So I lost it recently and decided to run the half marathon in January...
I got help with training (the future training; have yet to start) and was told to hit up runnersworld.com to get a schedule. It's laughable as far as I'm concerned; but, I'm curious to see how well I do. I like having goals and I'm looking forward to having a reason to run. I miss it... actually I just miss how amazing my legs USED to look. haha
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Race DayDist: 5 KGood Luck!
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Josiah and I were eating breakfast and his eyes got all big and he goes:
"Mom, last night! Last night I was dream I was riding on an eagle's back!" He went on to tell me that they went to the store and the eagle let Josiah pet him, but not on the wing- because the wings "are just hard". At the end of his whole little shpeal, Josiah puts his palms up to me and and said "it just worked itself out, Mom. It just turned out."
Silly little goober. I love him.

Just for you, Ms Fields

I love blogging the silly Norris-isms that occur almost hourly in our house.
..........Nothing today! It's been way too long since I've blogged or otherwise made written documentation that we've lived for the past few months.

Cate's been exercising her right to speak and act freely. She's learned that she can make noises to a certain reaction and is absolutely thrilled with herself.... I wish she'd not take the advice of her older brother who has her convinced that growling loudly is the golden ticket for her every desire, but I'll take what I can get at this point. :) She's learned "where's your nose". As far as she's concerned, it's the funniest thing and she's just so darn proud of herself.....

Josiah got sent home from school Monday for "being a turkey" is what the director's assistant called it, but frankly he was a terror. ..............If I ever questioned whether or not he belonged to me.......
As I was driving to the school, I was thinking of Mrs Strouhal (who's more than likely dead by now) who retired the year I was in her 1st Grade class, Mrs. Mc Adams: for accusing me of cheating while I sat secluded in the corner of our 4th grade class room, Mrs Jenson: who, as far as I could tell was possessed..... Poor FISD

First Day of Preschool for the Tallest of the Two

On Sunday, Cale and I sat down and purposed to plan the perfect (A+, if you will) "First Day" Breakfast and morning for Josiah. We bought special breakfast- I make these amazing breakfast sandwiches- and set out Josiah's clothes, set the alarm for super-early so we could have our time together before the offspring awoke.
Sweet husband turned the alarm off in his sleep. Yup, we woke up at 7:20. It put a damper on Caleb's morning, but Josiah didn't know the difference. Caleb it usually at work at 6, if not before.... He was entertaining that morning....

Josiah was so sweet and so cute for his first day of school. I've been growing his hair out for the summer and when trimming around his ears I made a baldspot about the size of our couch in his hair. I tried covering it up, but the end result was buzzing his goldilocks all off. So sad. He looks handsome, thought. And older.

He insisted that I simply park in the pick-up lane to pick him up and was FURIOUS when I got too excited to wait and went in to get him. He saw me at the door and just scowled. :(
So I went back outside-ALONE- and drove around to the pick-up lane and parked. He got in just as happy as a little clam. He's a nerd.

His teacher's really nice. I thought her last name was going to be sort of difficult for him to pronounce, but he does really well.

He's also making friends already!!! There's a boy in his class named "Boots". Spelled like that, too. I was thinking maybe someone special in his family worked for Boots'n'Coots??? I dunno. But Josiah likes him and says he's a pirate with him at recess.

He doesn't talk about the girls in his class and when I ask he tells me they aren't his friends and they're strange but each time I've dropped him off and picked him up, these two girls make him sit with them and run to hug him... weird.
I was annoyed with the girls obsessing over Josiah until one of their mothers was walking past me in the parking lot to her car and I wished her a good day and asked how her daughter was enjoying school- she looked at me and said something rude and got in her car. :) I think the other moms know I'm young? haha. maybe a little? For a second I enjoyed the fact that this woman's daughter will one day have her heart broken because my son will not want to date her and she'll remember this day and feel bad about the way she treated me.... A far fetch, but it helped. Then my consciense kicked in and I felt bad for the chunky, middle-aged minivan driving woman. (I'm as bad as they are)

I've thoroughly enjoyed the Friendswood moms. I thought it would get better by the time I became a mom. It's certainly not better, but it is WAY more fun now that I'm a mom. I've enjoyed messing them this week. Maybe I'll get a chain wallet for Josiah's jeans...


Does anyone remember the Friendswood bubble? I'd sure enjoy a memory if you've got one!!!

"Josiah and Dr Taylor" Take: One

Well, Josiah's first trip ever to the Dentist's office (gross, right?) went off without a hitch! Josiah was SO brave and absolutely LOVED all the attention. He stood (if you can believe it) completely still for the new-fangled x-ray machine to rotate around his little head and "get his picture taken". He was so sweet! It was absolutely hilarious watching his little brain work at 90 miles an hour to try and figure out what the contraptions were that were going into his mouth. But, all in all, the trip was fantastic and our Dentist and his office staff were wonderful. I can't imagine a better place to take my kids. They made it so fun! Killer puzzles, too! Josiah wanted my help on one of the puzzles he was working on and while I was looking for its spot he said, "Mom, I just don't need your help. You're slow." And he took my piece away and immediately put it in its place. I'm a loser, apparently.... I finally know how my mother felt... Totally recommend the dentist though! If you live in Friendswood, it's the Friendswood Dental Group. They're amazing. And current, which is nice. Cool Kid starts Pre-school tomorrow. It's SOOOOOO bittersweet. A teacher he had during his summer camp was a Sunday School teacher yesterday and so it made him more excited about school tomorrow. But I was secretly hoping that he'd cry enough to where we could just start school next year... Can you believe he had the audacity to tell me that he didn't want me to walk him into the school? He said I was too old. I've NEVER been too old for anything. I don't even use night cream, yet; I told him. He didn't buy it and told me I wasn't allowed that that it was just the rules.....and he wagged his stubby, little finger at me. So I called him a punk and said it wasn't very fair for the moms that want to watch. ............And yesterday I got onto him for calling me a punk and saying that it wasn't fair for the little boys to not see the toys at Target. I couldn't figure out where he got off talking to me that way... :)

Kids say the Darndest things!

So we're meeting my college roomate and her husband for dinner last night. Cale and I had to time it just right so we didn't bring the restaurant down with screams and craziness....

5pm I get both kids in the car. Neither have napped to speak of and Josiah is furious that I can't magically make Word World appear on the television screen. He doesn't understand the concept of TV and MOVIE.
5:10 they're both completely out!!! YAY!!! So we (I) ran a few errands (get gas, return library books, get coffee, drive thru carwash aka money eater and rain bath) and ended up at Salt Grass (dinner destination) at 6. The meeting time was 7:15 so I drove around the parking lot to Target and parked in the corner of the back 40.
I planned for this and in doing so I packed a book and 2 magazines in Cate's diaper bag. :) HURRAY! Downtime!!! About a third of the way through Real Simple's September Issue, I caught something gross out of the corner of my eye.........

Painting a picture:
It's the end of time and I have the only vehicle on the earth: a Honda Civic (does everyone know how small a Civic is? Do we all agree that it'd be close to obsolete in an arrial view???).
So I, the sole remaining human, drive my Civic to a lonely parking lot. A Target parking lot, let's say. The Civic is ALONE in the middle of a parking lot.

So you see how tiny this car would be from above and how random it would be for a bird to crap on the DRIVER SIDE WINDOW of my car????


So this is what I figure: the bird, perched in the tree in my front lawn, saw how excited I was to get some nice, peaceful time (this bird reads minds) and followed me around town. It had a bite to eat at one of my stops and rested once we got to Target. This bird is the devil and soiled my freshly rinsed car! (drama added to emphasize irony. Is it really that bad? no.) :)
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Stick with me, I'm so sorry I babble.

Told you that story to tell you this story:
Josiah woke up and noticed my window (and more than likely heard me cursing the stupid bird that obviously aimed for my car) and said "mom, a bird went poo on your car?".......rest of the conversation went like this:

Me: "Sure did, Buddy. I guess he really had to go."
Si: "How we going to clean it off, Mom?"
Me: "I don't know, sweetie. A hose I guess?"
Si: "I know what we could do! We could get an ELEPHANT to clean it for us!"
Me: "We cou-?"
Si: "He could suck up the water into his nose and spway your window for you! It would be all clean!"
after an Oscar worthy attempt at not laughing at my precious boy, I asked where we should look for an elephant.
His reply. "Oh Mom, they're at the petting zoo."
I guess I should have known that?

So that's what we'll do today, I suppose. Go petition help from the petting-zoo-elephant.

Josiah's amazing.

dirty little feet

Lighter note...

Cate's totally going to take off any day. It's so sweet; and so sad (she's officially not a baby). She's taking several good steps on her own and it's aweful and amazing.

Cheers!

Love the Verb

Quickly, just to remember:

An amazing women shared a story with me today about how God specifically TOLD her to do something crazy and wound up using her and that strange task to heal a boy that had essentially become, well, a vegetable.

conclusion:
I'm so sick of hearing people's crap about how they 'study' the Word and nitpick and argue with other believers about doctrine and whatnot. Who freaking cares?! Honestly? Good for you. Now go out and use it. Prove that you know it. .....faith without works is dead.....anyone? SHOW ME how much you know. Show me you know that your overwhelming admiration and love for the Father consumes you in such a way that you're willing to drag a mourning mother (that you've never met) into the room where her dying son lay for the OK to turn off the machines because he's been completely devoid of brain activity for several days and his lungs are essentially mush- all because the Lord said "touch him and pray". Seriously, who cares what you think about what "time" really is and why God chose certain things.... He's in control. Don't worry about the little stuff!

To the Brotherhood:
Don't lose focus. Love God. LOVE God. Love others. Why make things more difficult than Jesus spelt out for us? Isn't He the one that left us His PERFECT example to follow?
Remind yourself that God's not going to ask you if you're Calvist or Armenian (because it doesn't mean JACK in the grand scheme of things-Note: both are backed up in the Bible. My guess is because He is smarter than YOU and me and to remind us that it doesn't bloody matter) and he dang sure isn't going to give out extra stickers for how many times we've read the bible cover-to-cover.

Love the Lord your God. For those that the Living God is your God- Love God. Love people. Love's a Verb, FYI.

kicking it old-school

I just want to remember that I had a refreshing reminder today that all of the not-spending we're doing will be AWESOME 5-10 years from now when we need it most.

It's tough being young and having the means to do things (NEW CAR NEW CAR NEW CAR!), but remaining steadfast and patient to only buy things with cash. Ugh! Everyone our age has credit cards. Lots of credit cards. Sometimes I want to break down and go charge our empty cards with $10,000 worth of shoes! ooh ooh or furniture.... or a freaking fence for our back yard!

BUT. Our cash-bought fence will never blow down. And, if it does, God will bless us with the means to have it repaired (like the seemingly meaningless mutual funds). And our Debt-free car's gas won't be so painful.....


Lord, remind me of the future. Forgive my fleshly desire to go buy STUFF that I think we need.
How did people have immediate gratification 35-75 years ago?!

Cheers to 10 years from now! (And thank you, Lord for my patient husband!)

definately.....maybe

this is my goal: 28233 meadow falls court in Magnolia.
It's a gorgeous home sitting on over 3 acres, overlooking the 18th hole of the gated community's private golf course. That's MY house. I will clean it for Caleb, cook in it and we will have the kids' sports teams and friends over. We will have silly Easter egg hunts and watch movies as a family facing the amazing backyard. And I will finally, finally have my Ozark Mountain dog. I will name her Pearl. She'll be gorgeous in my yard and Tucker will hate her. Pearl won't mind because she's 200 pounds and could eat him should she decide it benefits. We'll have our church's youth group over to our house for biblestudy and we'll play pool and eat and play cards.

Where did this come from?
Caleb and I visited a breeder in Magnolia and fell in love with the area. It's so secluded feeling! I'm not even going to start on the shopping to behold on that side of town....mmmmmm :)
But, basically, this woman's house was totally lost in the trees and the drive from the mailbox to the front door was close to a half-mile. Very.... Gramma's house. It was wonderful.

It's frustrating to set goals when you don't know how. Example: I found a backback (I'm in school; therefore, I'm in need of a backback.) My step closer to my 1.2 million dollar dreamhouse? Thought process: which do I want more: house or cute backback on clearance that will save my already ailing back? Answer: the house. So the $20 dollars I would have spent on said bag- shot on over to the savings account. Big dent. whoop.
Someone should offer classes to those of us that are challenged and have no idea how to set goals...
Or the odds for the Lottery should magically improve.





Good day.

Coming to you LIVE: Your local Norris update!

Hello, Family (y nosotros amigos)

Quick recap on the most interesting weekend to date...

So, sweet Cate caught an allergy to cheese- oh wait. Incorrect diagnosis from someone educated enough to know better- she actually had a virus! (Apologies for my bitterness. I just wish I would've known, is all)

Cate threw up all of Thursday and still continues to have "tummy troubles" as of this evening. I caught the bug late Saturday and (as of about 9:30 tonight) feel several times better- just in time for Caleb's first bought of it. Poor kid, he's in running to the bathroom as I type...
~~~~~~pause to help out~~~~~~~~

Cale left Friday afternoon for ?San Marcos? to go camping and float the river with a couple guy friends. I've heard some silly stories and all in all it sounds like they had a great time! On the drive up they witnessed a driver "under the influence" get caught (I thought: thank goodness no one was hurt! the boys thought: perfect youtube moment!!!) by a state trooper. Caleb said it seemed like a pretty dangerous situation- so of course they videotaped it. haha. typical guy thing, I suppose. They had some strange "campsite neighbors", too apparently. They grilled fish (that Caleb caught the weekend before) and had manfood and then floated all day Saturday and napped on and off until Sunday morning when they had to come home because my insides were trying to come out my mouth...
which leads to our side of the weekend!:
On Friday Cate helped me take apart and wash the carseat covers (since she was the one that vomitted on them) and put them back together. Friday night the kids and I went to the Hunsuckers' house for dinner and I played cards with them for a bit before the kids were ready for bed. On Saturday Josiah and Cate went to my mom and dad's so I could fill in for Sister at her soccer game (we lost to the worst team in the league- go figure). It was super fun. Although, I had the strangest feeling in my tummy for the majority of the game- like right as you're catching the flu...- which that night turned out to be the virus that Cate so sweetly passed on to me. My sister came over and petted me to sleep and I (rockely) made it through the night; although, my mom and sister had to hold my house down the next day!

Side note: (thank you, God) I'm holding a pretty decent GPA considering the amount of time that I actually have compared to amount of time I assumed I'd have. Woo hoo!
Also: Be praying for Caleb. His job's..... getting him thinking about our future.

That's enough! Love you guys!

2 blogs in 1 day!

Totally got a job (if you can call it that)! I'm so excited! Even though I'm super-pumped about the job itself, I'm over-the-top crazy about the fact that it's a set start and end time. I am such a flaky person and I get bored at jobs really easy (even thought it's been two years since I've had a job, i'm sure it'd be the same!) and quite frankly we don't need the money. So, I don't want to work hard. I want to have fun and get out of the house to do something mindless and be around adults! Hurray! I get to! (Don't ask me what it is; my mother's ashamed and said keep it on the DL)

...........I'm not a stripper. They said my boobs are too small.


Jerks.

nerdy, nerdy, bo berdy; me, my, mo merdy...

I typically can't wait to get Caleb out of the house so I can have some "quiet (ish)" time by myself. I LOVVVEEE reading and I think that's one of Caleb's biggest pet peeves is my love (obsession) for reading. So, me and my books, typically, have a torrid affair any time Cale's out of the house.
I'll usually find something flannel, pop two or three bags (that's the amount it takes to get an unburned bag; I'm not a pig!) of popcorn and wash my face of all my "pretty" (as Josiah calls it) and hunker down on the couch with my AWESOME gramma quilt and just read until my eyes can't take it any more.
I was reminiscing at my mom's the other night in her library. I rode my bike (Cate in -tow) to my parents to have my daddy fix this bolt-thing and it took a bit more time than we both thought. Well.... I was looking in my mom's library and I noticed that almost an entire wall was MY childhood reading: All of Rhald Dahl's novels, Mark Twain, Diary of Anne Frank, books on Geology, Bugs, Geography... I didn't really have any books that were age appropriate and as I recall almost every single one of those particular shelves contained books from before I was 10.

All of this to say, I realized why I had no friends growing up! As much as I joke about being a nerd and admit to having very few friends growing up... It's true. I say these things in jest, but they're all bloody true! It's so sad.

Ah well, we all have things. Caleb talks in his sleep; I'm a nerd.

......and Cate's first book was The Great Gatsby (someone save her now! haha)


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9 'no's for every 'yes'

I think whoever made up that saying is a liar... I'm going on about a gagillion "no"s and have yet to get a bite.
I am hoping for a glimmer of hope to appear in the form of Manhatten cuz one of my most favorite friends lives closeby and I'd get to see her!!!! That'd be the highlight of the trip; not the job. haha ................thinking if this truly IS the case, may need to rethink desired profession.


What doesn't kill you or reduce you to a pile of pathetic mess will only make you stronger....maybe.

:) Glad to be alive and healthy and have something to look forward to!

"Dr. Mom Monday"

So, our precious Catie-bugg ate fuzz yesterday... Specific Fuzz, not just "silly Cate ate some carpet fuzz! hardy har." nope. Not my baby girl.

Story goes this way:

I walk into our room after chasing Tucker down to retrieve some over-priced, ruffled baby socks from the back of his throat. After checking to make sure he hadn't stored anything else away for the winter, I put the pathetic socks into the kitchen sink to soak in bleach, scrubbed my hands, and then scrubbed them again... and then headed to my room to collect Cate and head to the store with her and her big brother.
First thing I saw when I walked into the room was this HUGE foam baseball bat up in the air. Oh, and so sweet! This enormous bat was holding my sweet cate. I wish I'd taken a picture, now! Well, my first thought was how sweet it was 'Josiah LOVES baseball', and then 'he should see his Sissy holding this bat!' I got down on the floor to coo with her about how cute it is that she loves what her Bubby loves, yadda yadda and I notice that the bat is no longer a bat, but a wounded prisoner to our crazy dog! It's missing an alarmingly large chunk from one side! I look at Cate and say, "Silly Tucker must have knawed Bubby's bat!"
Cate thinks this notion is hilarious and opens her mouth to let out her infamous belly-laughter.... Her whole mouth is FULL FULL FULL of this styrofoam! She was the guilty party in dismembering the bat!!! She looked like a little chipmunk! The best part was Cool Kid wouldn't let me get it out. She absolutely flipped out on me like I was the plague and made a break for it. Long story short I pinned her down (I know, I know, Call CPS, right?). I tried to open her mouth and she just got more angry with me and locked it shut (after biting me twice).
FINALLY, I sat her in my lap on our bed to try and laugh it out of her. First thing I tried: Opened my mouth as wide and awkward as I could and went "awwwwwwhhhhhh!!!!". Right at first she just stared at my mouth and furrowed her little baby brow.... not even a second later she opened her mouth, stuck her tiny toungue out and copied me: "awwwwwwwhhhhhh!!!!"

This story is three-fold:

1. My baby learned to say "ahhhhh" (and to mimic those who do it first)
2. Cate survived this tragic foam event.
3. I have the cutest kids in the world, bar none.

sex sex sex!

I hate how the church has abandoned junior high and high school girls and guys. Sure, there's a ministry for them, whatever. But, honestly. I have not met a girl that feels genuinely loved on or a young man that feels like he's growing into a man. A real man.
Seriously. Instead of marrying off the young pregnant girl and calling it a day, let's freaking be proactive and teach the kids about sex! Not that it's bad and not that it's only for marriage. They need to know what it is, and they need to bloody be aware of what safe sex is. I'm not condoning sex outside of wedlock; But, seriously. Hoping to raise ignorant, naive little girls isn't going to cut it. Buying a ring and making them promise is CRAP when they fall in "love" for the first time, have their heart broken, have little or no relationship with their earthly daddy. Honestly, now. I am sick, I'm physically sick over listening to girls my own age gossip about teenage pregnancy like it's a joke and even listen to high school girls with plans to get pregnant. It's disgusting and I don't know where the hell their parents are or why they choose not to pray for, love on, or discipline their kids. I realize there are extreme cases; I know that God allows things to happen to bring glory to himself, but unless your child is forced into sex and a pregnancy occurs- file charges on the fool if you can't kill him first- there is no excuse for parents to neglect teaching teenagers about safe sex. We should teach them and fill their little heads with knowledge and then pray them into the right direction.
I wish that a man, somewhere, would saddle up and teach these young guys how to be men. I was floored when a (christian!) high school boy joked (in front of me, my husband and my 3 year old) about getting his high school girlfriend pregnant (she's not). And I am furious that the girls that at one point have called eachother 'friend' have alienated themselves from this sweet girl and possibly driven her into a physical relationship that they assumed was already happening. If there was a girl that shared the body of Christ with me that I knew or thought I knew was even just entertaining an idea of a physical relationship outside of what she'd do in front of me, the LAST thing I'd do is leave her and allow her to cling to that relationship more. Girls need girlfriends! What happened to sleepovers and silly games and braiding eachothers' hair?!
Where are these girls' dads to teach them how to be respected and loved and treated daintily. Probably trying on high heels and pearls while mom's out mowing the lawn, waiting for November 4th so she can vote for Obama.

Lord, please break the christians of this nation and humble us. Please remind us of what this, one shot at life we've got. Thank you, God that you have not reduced us all to ashes and that in your grace you allow me to vent my anger towards an unrightious nation and community, even though I not once taken notice that I unjustly take my anger out on my children, talk ugly to my own husband and leave a sink full of dishes for tomorrow's day. Your name is what I should say when I'm weary and when I'm angry and when I 'just don't feel like it'. Lord, call this nation back to you and bring about even just one more revival before you send Jesus back to collect us. You tell us clearly that you'll answer if we just humble ourselves and call on you. Lord, make us humble. Help all the dad's to follow you in everything they do. Help us wives to be gentle, quiet, and peaceful and remind us to pray over our husbands and that you have everything under control. Give even one young man the desire to step up for the guys in our church. And, lead him to a place where you can use him to show the boys.... how to be boys. Heal the little girls' hearts and fill them with the comfort that only a heavenly father can provide. Remind them who their body belongs to and that only once they've married the one whom their heart is called to love, do they give their body to become someone else's. Help us as parents know how to speak to our kids; I'm sure it must be hard, Lord...because otherwise it'd get done.
Praise you God. Thank you, Lord for calling me.

I'm a housewife with politics in my DNA, not a bloody gardener!

This week I got a little over 200 pictures developed from the span of February to mid-May. I realized two things after getting those pictures back: 1. I don't take enough pictures and 2. something is amiss with my shrubs.
Included in the pictures are the photos of Cale and I planting the little guys, and funny- THEY'RE THE SAME BLOODY SIZE as they were in March! The shrubs out front have been there for....3 months or so. We planted them exactly when the card (Home Depot "plant me" card) said and they're tiny. They're quite small, anyway, compared to what the picture said they'd be.

It's so bewilderring the selective magical powers you receive when you become a mom. I got the "I can totally handle any poo diaper" and "bat ears" powers. I don't know why God left out the gardening-power. I've always desired to be that gardener. You know, the one that looks at a baby weed-like thing and goes: "Oh, this is a lkjsdflke Tree. It's native to lkjlj;lj." Nah, much to my chagrin, I'll have to find something else to fill the yard-shaped hole in my heart.



So Cate's totally climbing my bookshelf. Yup, I sure did take a shelf out this week to make it more difficult for her.... we shall see

*Side note: Picture: I'm walking down the hall to get Cate from her crib. She's just awaken for the day and is cooing. I notice quickly that she and Josiah are talking. I peek just enough around the corner to see them and duck back around out of sight, again. Josiah's telling her a story: ".... and then I hear the thumber and I climbed up, up, up my tool bench. Suddenly! I saw it was raining, sissy! I watched it rain for 40 nights and 40 days and God flooded for the whole earth. and Noah sends his friend a dove to get his Olive leaf and look! God sended his rainbow in the sky. It's His rainbow for his promising He's not going to flood the earth again. Noah had a BIG ark, Sissy!" There was a brief pause, and knowing Josiah he's planning on venturing into the animals that were contained inside the ark and all the birds and zoo creatures and how they kicked out the dinosaurs because they smelled bad.... "Sissy, gimme back my umbrunda, Sissy! Mine!!!" Beautiful moment: over and out.

How do you spell SAN-EE?

I have got to blog this before I forget to write it down somewhere!

Intro: Josiah has named each pet that has (somehow) gotten into the house and on "feed and keep" status. His (first) cat of almost two years has actually gone through a meriad of names (won't give you a list) and has settled (nicely because of the jolly jelly that he carries 'round his midsection) on "Santa".


For a little over a week, Josiah's been calling Santa "san-ee". "It's his nip-name," I'm told. "You know, like Emma calls me 'Yah-yah' and A-toya (Victoria from Playschool) calls me 'siah'. My nip-name, Mom." Of course, I'm extremely uncool for not knowing this already. Duh, who wouldn't nicname a cat "Sannie"?! Earth to Mom!

He's so sweet. I just really didn't want to forget our funny kitty's "nip-name".

World small. God big

It's so funny (ironic might be a better word) that I express my feelings about God finding enjoyment in "showing off" for us, but I think that- correction: come to realize that- I don't really believe it. Well, I don't act like it any way... My Paw paw taught my mama that "you do what you want to do" meaning actions speak louder than words/walk the walk/ among others...

All the babble to say... God showed off for me. In my funny Biology class, God showed off for me! He cares about ME! How awe-some. I feel special and important. And I'm so excited to show Him to the others in my class. I'm so excited to know that even before Adam was brought to a beautiful garden and before God made the sky, He thought about me leaving college to marry the one my heart loves, begin and complete our melodious little family, and then come back to school on a whim and be in exactly the class I'm in, with exactly the teacher I have with exactly the people He wanted to touch through my sinful, discusting, wretched, saved, redeemed, loved and mercied.... self. How wonderful.

I will love the Lord with all my heart with all my soul with all my mind... with all my strength.

*I got to sing to the Lord last night with my surrogate big sister and a close friend from high school. At the same time a very new, amazing friend was laboring to bring her husband's first son into the world. We were all worshipping God together.
The song said "sing all you want to. But, don't get me wrong; worship is more than a song." It was stuck in my head all day. I keep thinking about it- and it was so COOL explaining it to Josiah- that I DO I DO I DO love to sing to the Lord (stop laughing. I know you think it's aweful! But God Almighty thinks it sounds like Celine Dion!) but it was so nice being reminded that yes, sing all you want to. Freaking sing!!! All the time, if you must! But worship is more than just that. I think (a friend of my mom's will have to let me borrow a quote) that a huge portion of worship is looking at the same thing as everyone else, but seeing God's hand in its place.

on the 5th

Cate started climbing at some point recently. Last week on the 5th, I looked up from cooking and she was standing up on the couch, leaning over the armrest looking at my collection of magazines...

Should have painted a "pre baby dying" story picture: the cushions are off the couch and she's about 4-6 inches off the ground as she crawled up...

But she was so sweet! She just looked at me and grinned; so proud of herself. I am too. She's wonderful. Josiah's excited about her learning to climb because he is desperate to play football with her. Any time I have to tell him "Sissy's just not old enough yet", he'll respond: "Yes. Sissy's not old enough. She's almost old enough to play football with me. She can play football when she's old enough." Such a silly boy. But he loves his sister. And she adores her big brother... for good reason.

Here we go with another week at the Crazy Farm! :)
I start summer school tomorrow. Little nervous, but I'm so excited to be done. I told Josiah at dinner that I was excited about school (I've been carrying my books around everywhere!) and that I start back tomorrow and he said, "And I start MY job tomorrow!" haha. He's just so silly!

What's his job, you ask? Well, he told me that he'll be working on his bike and his hummer. You'll have to get details from him....

Here comes Monday...

2+2= 10?!

Jackie's two youngest kiddos are here this morning through the afternoon. It's so amazing to see how far they've come in such a short time! Caleb and I and the kids got to hang out with them just a few months ago and from then to today.... it's like 2 different kids! I'm so proud of their adoptive parents and excited for the two boys that they now have such an amazing life ahead of them because of the start that was given them. Praise God for people that have a heart for hurting babies.

But for now.... in my house today... my two kids and her two kids feel like 10! In the first hour.... Micah's been barreled over by Tucker (our mutt), his face has been smashed by Josiah's bucket, Noah is frightened of the dog and was slapped by Cate (enough to cry)....
But, go me: I had breakfast and coffee made for all 4 and they're (I think) having a good time.

.....I could have 10 kids

*coffee was for me! ;)